“This is the American Autumn, which has pretty much sprang forth from the Arab Spring, pretty much the same thing. And that’s why I’m here,” said, David Stevenson, 60 year old Real Estate agent from Connecticut. Since September 17, a variety of residents from all around the United States responded to calls by nonprofit and online organizations such as Adbusters and Anonymous, which requested all who were dissatisfied with the Financial Crisis of 2008 and the ongoing effects of that crisis to peacefully protest in the confines of the financial district of Manhattan. This protest is unique to the United States because its nature resides in an issue that inevitably produces ramifications for all people connected in someway to the economic system of the country. Therefore, it is a class issue, not racially or sexually driven. Stevenson and thousands of others are stationed at Zucotti Park with the intention of using civil disobedience to drive those in powerful positions fiscally and politically to stop turning their heads when there are economic problems that cannot be avoided as they have been for centuries.
On July 13, 2011 the Vancouver non-profit consumer advocate Ad Busters issued a forum that generated the initial proposal to non-violently petition against the continued abuses of the financial system in place in the United States. “Then our model was to attack the system like a pack of wolves. There was an alpha male, a wolf who led the pack, and those who, followed behind. Now the model has evolved. Today we are one big swarm of people,” said, Raimundo Viejo, Pompeu Fabra University. This quote was used on the original post to help sum up the only way that the system referred to as, “Wall Street, the Financial Gomorrah of America,” could be confronted. Attempts for a compromise to take place will only suffice if unified with a single cause in a location that would force the authoritative political system of the United Sates to directly deal with all who were unhappy with the current motions of government. AdBusters originally wanted 20,000 people to confine themselves in lower Manhattan to set up a communal center with a kitchen and tents and Occupy Wall street for a few months. A goal of gathering here is to bring attention to, “Wall Street the Financial Gomorrah of America,” the ultimate disturbance to a nation generally viewed as a democratic foreground. Influence of corporations over those who govern in Washington is seen by AdBusters as directly comparable to the unending power that former President Muhammad Mubarak had over the Egyptian people. With only ultimatum of the protesters at Tahrir Square being to remove Mubarak, the unified determination of nearly 300,00 people proved impossible to ignore.
Egypt’s’ change of regime was one of the many branches of the Arab Spring movement that had started to come into fruition in late 2010. The call for changes in longtime regimes that have existed throughout the Islamic world in the Middle East, had also received boosts in publicities because of the output of information by digital media mediums. “We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world,” said, a female activist from Cairo via Twitter. These three mediums were essential when Internet users from all around the world sought out constant updates about changes in the government of Egypt, Libya and other spring nations. AdBusters continuous posts about the need to Occupy Wall Street often end with a hope that this movement will slowly emulate the mechanics of the Arab Spring.
Following the initial announcement on July 13th a people’s general assembly came together on August 2nd on 4:30 at the north end of Bowling Green Park to correspond with the “Debt-Ceiling Deadline,” that bankers had proposed. Students, union activists, and people with other affiliations came together to discuss how the deficit that has burdened the United States could be directly linked to theft of wages through excessive taxing, the forced removal of pensions and social security assets. “We did not have to let them walk with just a simple pay back. They should have been forced into loan modification and made to give back to the people who saved their business by working with the customers to mange their debt obligations,” said, Gregg Rule, Senior Vice President of Portfolio Group and a financial advisor for Morgan Stanley + Smith Barney. Liability for banks stems from the financial turmoil that is a direct result of deregulation beginning in the early 1980s. Jimmy Carter’s Depository Institutions Deregulations and Monetary Control Act of 1982 expanded the lending power of banks as well as increased the deposit insurance limit from $40,000 to $100,000. This sudden increase in laisez faire economics had led banks to gain a renewed interest in real estate loans and speculative lending. In Nov of 1999, former President Bill Clinton put into action the Gramm Leach Billey Act that repelled a portion of the 1933 Glass Steagle Act that decreased the discrepancies between consumer friendly commercial banks and investment banks only looking for an increase in revenue. With the loss of regulations banks throughout the 1990s stimulated an expansion in the mortgage industry and home ownership increased rapidly. Along with the growing deficit, the deregulation of the banking industry became hazardous when those who took out mortgages on their homes had no ability to pay for what had been purchased with money owed to failing banks. By the mid 2000s failure of the market put citizens of the country at odds with the banking industries who were instrumental in causing the economic meltdown. Corporations such as Merrill Lynch and Chase Bank had been bought out as a result of the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program that former President Bush passed to ensure the safety of companies feeling the worst side effects of the mortgage crisis. With the bail out of these businesses, there was a general consensus to tax the corporations responsible for generating this massive fiscal downturn. The constant deregulations that still exist in investment industries allow practices to occur where those who aren’t protected by corporate safety nets cannot escape taxes that are helping pay for the $700 billion dollar bail out from the TARP legislation. On August 10th, after the growth of the General Assembly to movement with manifesto, the hacking advocate group Anonymous dedicated themselves to the purpose of vindicating all responsible for the economic spiral.
Anonymous call for any one who can to come together and, “flood Wall Street. Setup Tents, kitchens, and peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months.” A sentiment of peaceful civil disobedience was constantly promoted by Anonymous to show that through a massive communication to the oppressor without the use of violence is the only way to be taken seriously. On September 7, AdBusters announced the necessity for other countries,
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